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4 min read1 min

I was astonished when, fresh from his trip to Buckingham Palace, Andy Burnham stood in front of Downing Street and named the eradication of rough sleeping as his first priority as Prime Minister.

It’s a preoccupation that has obsessed us at the Big Issue since the September 1991 creation of magazine. In one moment, the 35 years of pushing to rid us of rough sleeping in particular – and homelessness in general – seemed as if it’s paid off.

Burnham has the very best of intentions, but critics and friends alike will point out his plan is easier said than done. All cautious of hope before delivery – promising the earth and delivering a flowerpot. Isn’t Burnham promising way more than he could possibly achieve? We’ve heard similar rhetoric before, including when another mayor turned PM, Boris Johnson, bounced into No 10 in 2019.

I remember when rough sleeping became an increasing reality. In 1961 as a 15-year-old runaway dodging the police, you would not, or could not, sleep rough. You would be arrested. Strict vagrancy and ‘no fixed abode’ laws were used liberally. Instead you hid in derelict or abandoned buildings, away from the public eye. You might call it social cleansing. The social dislocation of homelessness was kept away from scrutiny.

But by the mid-1960s something had changed. Begging and rough sleeping seemed to be ignored by the police. Gradually streets in the centre of our cities, principally London, took on a new reality. The dispossessed became visible. So what started off as a social cleansing system was allowed to fall apart. The vagrancy laws remained in place until only a few weeks ago, but they were used less often. Usually you could wrap your self up in something and sleep where commerce traded and the public wandered.

Burnham, at long last, looks set to prioritise this social injustice, and we thank him for that

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A new ingrained reality became acceptable. A human rights abuse became visible. More people fell between the cracks of a once all-encompassing welfare system and straight down onto the cold, hard pavement.

Social sores were displayed as government washed its hands of responsibility. The problem was largely passed onto charities. An attitude of “You sort it out” seemed to emanate from police, local authorities and central government. And while this mindset has shifted somewhat in the years since, levels of rough sleeping have continued to wax and wane, and today the crisis remains stubbornly present in our towns and cities.

Burnham, at long last, looks set to prioritise this social injustice, and we thank him for that. From my place in the House of Lords, and in the pages of the Big Issue, we will offer our support and advice on how he can make his vision a reality. Because ending rough sleeping will require a huge collective effort. It needs strong leadership by government but must be done arm-in-arm with local authorities, businesses and the third sector.

It also requires some clever problem solving. For a start – how do you rollout Housing First nationwide when we still have a chronic lack of homes? Perhaps Burnham could look to unlock the 300,000 long-term empty homes sitting pretty across Britain. Funding councils to bring these properties back into use is the sort of long-term ‘spend to save’ measure we need to fix the country.

This pledge centres homelessness as a blight on the face of society. There are other blights. The biggest to me is the 40 per cent of governmental income going on maintaining people in poverty. We need to shift to a prevention mindset when it comes to breaking the cycle of poverty. As of yet the delivery of clear and cogent poverty dismantling thinking has been poor. But I live in hope.

Lord Bird is a crossbench peer and founder of the Big Issue

3 min read8 min

The Constitution Unit’s newly published report – Safeguarding the Constitution: Key Steps to Strengthen UK Democratic Resilience – lays out a set of practical reforms to respond to these challenges.  

Most obviously, these include measures to address known vulnerabilities or loopholes. For example, key ethics regulators should now be given a statutory footing so that they cannot be undermined or abolished at a prime minister’s whim. The process for appointments to the House of Lords should be reformed, ending the unconstrained power of patronage that currently allows a prime minister to appoint as many people as they wish, with no requirements for fair party balance and no enforceable propriety constraints.

In some cases, institutions and processes also need to evolve to match the changing context in which they operate. The arrangements for parliamentary scrutiny of international agreements, for example, have changed little in the past 100 years; the limited role they afford MPs is increasingly out of kilter with the scope and impact of modern treaties.

Similarly, political finance rules have not kept pace with parties’ growing reliance on major donors, and the corresponding risk that a small group gains disproportionate political influence. The government has already promised some welcome changes in response to the Rycroft Review on foreign financial interference, and has requested a review of spending limits from the Electoral Commission. Detailed work on donation caps should take place alongside that.

Strengthening our constitution does not only mean safeguarding institutions: the ultimate check on power in any democracy is its citizens. This makes work to improve the information environment and support civic education vital.

Statutory codes of conduct could require social media platforms to mitigate democratic risks, while the government could invest in the provision of high-quality information. The new National Curriculum, to be delivered in English schools from 2028, offers opportunities to improve and expand Citizenship education.

The most significant constitutional changes need careful policy work and wide consultation, to deliver results that last and that meaningfully contribute to trust in the democratic system. For a new government with countless demands on its time and attention, some of these may appear low priority.

But now is the time to begin these reviews, so that detailed proposals can be worked up in time for the drafting of the next general election manifesto. Meanwhile, there are plenty of things the Burnham government could do quickly to meaningfully strengthen the constitution.

The Representation of the People Bill is currently before Parliament. It has already been amended to increase the Electoral Commission’s independence, but more could be done. The legislation on removing peerages promised in the King’s speech could be broadened to address House of Lords appointments.

Many reforms can be delivered without legislation. Some would require standing order change – for example, to increase MPs’ influence over the Commons agenda, and more fairly allocate Commons time between opposition parties.

Others can be done by the government alone. Civil servants are working on a new edition of the badly outdated Cabinet Manual, and a process for future regular updating could be established at the same time. A duty to uphold democratic health could be included in the BBC’s promised permanent charter. The government’s lobbying transparency releases could be improved, as recently recommended by the Ethics and Integrity Commission.

Burnham has advocated a more collaborative approach to politics, and a less centralised state. Our proposed reforms offer practical ways of delivering those goals – and of safeguarding the UK constitution.

Lisa James is a Senior Research Fellow at UCL’s Constitution Unit

2 min read12 min

Host Alain Tolhurst also takes a look at Andy Burnham’s first few days in Number 10, how his Cabinet picks and his initial policy blitz are going down with his Labour colleagues, as well as the voters, and what else we can expect from our latest Prime Minister alongside two colleagues: deputy editor of our sister title The House magazine, Sienna Rodgers, and editor at PoliticsHome, Adam Payne.

The trio discusses the thinking behind the ministerial appointments, as well as what was going on behind the scenes in Westminster this week, plus how the Burnham government is keen to avoid the mistakes of the Keir Starmer administration in its first weeks in office. 

They also look at what the new Prime Minister might have planned for the summer, with the government already facing questions about how it will fund its cost-of-living package.

As well as trying to oppose the new Labour government, the Conservatives are looking to close the gap on Reform UK in the polls. Stride was in bullish form, saying he thinks Nigel Farage’s party has been on a “steady decline” since last autumn.

“And it’s quite conceivable that decline will continue,” he told the podcast. 

“What has underpinned that souffléing down of Reform is the fact that the firework display, the shimmy of the sequin dress, the music, the razzmatazz, it can’t last forever before people say I’ve heard that before, play me another song.”

The Rundown is presented by Alain Tolhurst, and is produced and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

• Click here to listen to the latest episode of The Rundown, or search for ‘PoliticsHome’ wherever you get your podcasts.

Make Love Not Porn founder Cindy Gallop, Labour MP Samantha Niblett and Coco de Mer CEO Lucy Litwack at the ‘Summer of Sex’ campaign launch party (Coco de Mer/John Lewis)

7 min read1 hr

Three months on from kicking off her campaign for lifelong sex education via an exclusive interview with PoliticsHome, Niblett partnered with major retailer John Lewis and luxury lingerie and sexual wellness brand Coco de Mer to host an event on Wednesday evening to officially launch the ‘Summer of Sex’.

Speaking at the event with Coco de Mer CEO Lucy Litwack and Make Love Not Porn founder Cindy Gallop – who has partnered with Niblett for her campaign – Niblett laid out how the campaign has progressed over the last few months.

“If I get known as Samantha the sex MP, I just start making it easier for other MPs to start to talk about it. Many of them have gone ‘my god, good on you, this is amazing’.”

She said some supportive MPs have told her that some of the “original doubters” have started to see the point of the campaign.

“Some MPs that were critical of the way that I went about it, they don’t like the sex toys, they think it’s diminishing the campaign.

“But it’s not. I grabbed the mic. It did get the attention, and I am absolutely going to do a sex toys event in Parliament because I want it to not be shocking. I want it to not be pearl-clutchy. 

“Some colleagues are going on a journey. I honestly believe it: the more that the country gets behind this campaign, the more that Parliament will, because it will be led by what is palatable. We are as basic as that, seriously. People are interested in sex. Everybody wants to talk about sex.”

Niblett said she aims to pull together a briefing document by the end of summer recess to send to fellow MPs and promote the purpose of the campaign.

In her interview with PoliticsHome in April, Niblett said she wanted to push for more open, inclusive lifelong sex education by securing a debate in Parliament on the topic in the autumn. Niblett said she wanted to promote wider awareness of consent, prevent abuse and violence, and raise awareness of how childbirth, the menopause, stress and other health conditions can impact sexual satisfaction.

Niblett shared that she watched porn herself like “lots of other people” and that it was a “turn on”. She said she will host an event in Parliament where she brings in sex toys, which has since been confirmed to be allowed by the parliamentary authorities. 

The campaign took Westminster by storm, generating discussion in the chamber, in which Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused Labour of “fiddling while Rome burns”, and heated debate within the women’s Parliamentary Labour Party WhatsApp group, in which other MPs accused Niblett of trivialising a serious topic. 

“I certainly found myself posting less in MP WhatsApp chats because there were slightly terse comments that went flying by in the women’s PLP chat,” Niblett said. 

“So I extricated myself from it, which is horrible because you think you’ve got comrades, but it didn’t feel like that. So that was a bit sad, but it’s politics.”

The interview generated many TV interviews and opinion columns, including an LBC interview with Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell in which she said: “I personally don’t own any sex toys, but each to their own”.

Niblett has since become the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for sexual and reproductive health.

The campaign launch event on Wednesday evening was attended by sponsoring brands John Lewis and Coco de Mer, sex education content creators, sexual intimacy coaches, charity campaigners and journalists. It was an exclusive affair, with the vast majority of the around 50 attendees being women. 

The event was located at the rooftop bar of John Lewis in central London, with servings of canapés and glasses of Aperol spritz, flowery decor and luxury goodie bags for attendees that contained biscuits, canned cocktails and intimate bodycare products. 

The ‘Yes sex please, we’re British’ campaign has a broad scope: covering lifelong sex education which Niblett describes as needing buy-in from government, the NHS and education systems, parents, and businesses.

Pressed on what specific demands she hopes to bring to government ministers, Niblett said she is continuing to speak to stakeholders and charities throughout the summer to learn as much as possible, before delivering a speech at the debate she has secured in Parliament, which is set to be held in the autumn. 

Talked about what she wants to systemic change and for positive sexual wellness should be “promoted” across the health and education systems.

“I have spoken to doctors and sexologists and people working within the NHS and educators that are just so grateful someone is taking this seriously within Parliament, that’s prepared to put their head above the parapet,” Niblett told PoliticsHome.

“We need to be talking about sexual wellness within the NHS, not just sexual health. Talking about the benefits of sex, not just let’s fix you when you’re broken.”

Niblett spoke of concerns raised by people working in the NHS that support is “patchy” for patients whose health conditions affect their sex lives: “Some doctors are embarrassed to talk about it; there isn’t a standard of sex education in GP training even.”

The MP also wants to start work on determining the economic value benefit of improving lifelong sex education, as a way of getting the Treasury on board by saving money for the NHS.

“How is it preventing other illnesses from happening? How is it making people better?”

Niblett also recently hosted a roundtable with Meta to express her opposition to the banning of accounts that share ‘positive’ sex education content.

The MP hopes that the sponsorship from John Lewis for the launch event will help to legitimise the campaign. John Lewis has seen a 22 per cent increase in demand for their sexual wellness products in the last year, which has been growing since the Covid-19 pandemic. John Lewis and Coco de Mer representatives told PoliticsHome at the event that both companies wanted to help take the “stigma” out of sex. 

Niblett has already won the support of Emma Thompson, who recorded a video with Niblett last month, saying that the campaign was “not party political, but it was critical”.

The MP has her sights on further celebrity endorsements: She is in conversation with LGBTQ dating app Grindr to get her an introduction to pop star Madonna, and with American media company Condé Nast to connect her with singer Harry Styles, who launched his own sex toy range last year.

“We’re trying to get the nation behind the campaign, because when you do that, MPs will fall in line,” Niblett said. 

“If it looks like a vote winner, people don’t want to look like the idiot who looks like the one who’s on the side.”